Chile approves extra payments for Pinochet victims

Chile's congress on Tuesday approved one-time reparation payments for political prisoners and torture victims of the 1973-1990 Augusto Pinochet dictatorship.

Regime victims already receive reparation payments of different types. This would be a blanket single payment for all recognized victims.

The measure "reflects the state's duty to offer reparations to victims of human rights violations during the dictatorship," read a statement from the Ministry of Government.

The "pernicious effects" of the Pinochet-era rights violations endure right up to the present, the statement read.

The payments total one million pesos -- about $1,450. Spouses of victims can receive 60 percent of the payment.

President Michelle Bachelet, herself a torture victim, introduced the measure in July.

Chile already grants reparation payments totaling $400 million a year for people who were exiled and tortured, as well as their relatives.

In 2003, the National Commission on Political Imprisonment and Torture, which investigated regime abuses, recognized more than 38,000 people as victims.

In a separate case, the Supreme Court on September 15 ordered reparation payments of $6.6 million to 31 political prisoners held in a concentration camp-style prison on Dawson Island, in the far south Straight of Magellan.

Pinochet's regime killed more than 3,200 people during its crack-down on leftist opponents.